Noy, labor leaders to hold pre-Labor Day meeting

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino will meet with labor leaders on the eve of the Labor Day celebration to discuss policy reforms and other issues affecting workers nationwide.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said yesterday compliance with core labor standards will be the top agenda during the meeting at Malacañang.

This year’s Labor Day theme is “Manggagawang Pilipino: Handa sa Hamon ng Makabagong Panahon.”

Baldoz said the focus of this year’s dialogue is on advancing compliance with core labor standards to alleviate poverty.

She said the Tripartite Industrial Peace Council (TIPC) and Tripartite Executive Committee (TEC) have unanimously agreed on the issues to be tackled during the pre-Labor Day dialogue.

Among the priority issues are compliance with constitutional guarantees on security of tenure, self-organization and collective bargaining. Also on the agenda are tax exemptions for minimum wage earners and imposition of taxes on back wages, allowances and benefits.

Labor leaders will also discuss the institutionalization of the Consultative Council on Overseas Filipino Workers (CCOFW) as a dialogue platform, and the conduct of regular dialogues with the President.

Baldoz said labor groups have also unanimously agreed to present issues that require administrative action such as the pursuit of unemployment insurance and assistance with the Department of Education, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, Commission on Higher Education, Social Security System and the DOLE’s Employment Compensation Commission.

“The TIPC and TEC labor sector have agreed to engage the President in a meaningful and interactive dialogue after his response to the issues has been delivered,” Baldoz said.

Meanwhile, the Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) pressed for a new employment program and economic policies to resolve the high unemployment rate in the country

“These job fairs the government is planning are part of a gimmick to cover up the truth that government is not doing anything significant to solve mass unemployment,” PM chair Renato Magtubo said.

Magtubo claimed the government is propagating the myth that the problem is job mismatch and thus the solution is job matching and facilitation.

“Yet the figures do not lie: the unemployment rate remains at seven percent, meaning some three million Filipinos are jobless. Millions more are not officially counted as unemployed because they are no longer looking for work after months and years of desperately looking for non-existent jobs,” Magtubo pointed out.

He said the 400,000 jobs to be offered at the May 1 job fairs would not suffice to provide employment for the 530,000 college graduates who entered the labor force this April.

He claimed the job fairs are even contributing to joblessness since human resources personnel of private companies are being retrenched because their work has been outsourced to the DOLE and public employment service offices of local governments.